Inside Microsoft Entertainment Pack 2

Microsoft

Inside Microsoft Entertainment Pack 2

By greg shultz March 6, 2011, 9:46 AM PST

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Image: NVIDIA

ntIn 1991, Microsoft released a second set of games for Windows 3.0 called the Microsoft Entertainment Pack 2.

nt(I could not track down the exact date of release.)

Image: NVIDIA

ntThe box cover for Microsoft Entertainment Pack 2 showed a collage of game pieces. As you can see, the big selling point for this package was a game called Pipe Dream.

ntAs I mentioned, the main selling point of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack 2 was a Windows version of Pipe Dream. This game was originally developed for the Amiga, where it became very popular. It was later ported over to several different platforms.

ntThe Help described the game as follows:

ntPipe Dream is a fast-flowing game of speed, strategy, and plumbing. Imagine yourself as the plumber-in-chief at the Acme Chemical Company. A miracle sewer cleaner called goo has just been invented, but it is being produced much faster than it can be piped into containers. Your job is to build an emergency pipeline with spare plumbing parts, and save the world from a sea of slimy green glop.

ntFreeCell, which became one of the standard games in Windows 95, first made its appearance in Microsoft Entertainment Pack 2. By playing red cards on black cards or black cards on red cards, you must eventually move all the cards to the home cells at the top by piling up cards of the same suit starting with the ace.

ntIn Stones you must place 90 stones on the board by matching their attributes. A stone can be placed next to a stone that shares two of its three attributes (Foreground color, background color, or character). There are also several wildcard stones to help you out in a bind.

ntIf you find the Chinese characters difficult to decipher, there are other stone styles to choose from.

ntRattlerRace is game of speed where you must guide the fast moving snake to each apple in the room without hitting a wall or being hit by a bouncing ball. Once you get all the apples, you move on to the next room.

ntJigSawed is a jigsaw puzzle game that allows you to select a 64 color bitmap image that is cut into the shapes that you specify (rectangles, circles, ellipses, or stars) and then scrambled all over the screen.

ntJigSawed came with several images, but you could use your own, as long as they were 64 color images. If you tried to load a 256 color bitmap, chances were good that the system would crash.

ntJust like the first pack, the Microsoft Entertainment Pack 2 came with the IdleWild screen saver application and eight more screen savers. If you installed this version of IdleWild over top of the previous version, it replaced the screen saver engine and incorporated the existing screen savers for a total of 16.

ntProbably one of the best screen savers in IdleWild’s second set was called Mandelbrot and it produced awesome fractal patterns in two passes. On the first pass, the pattern had very jagged edges, but on the second pass, the image was greatly refined.

ntThe other interesting screen saver in this version was called Spotlights. Your screen would go grey or black and two spotlights would appear and roam around the screen as if searching for escaped convicts in a prison yard. Whatever was on the screen at the time the screen saver kicked in, would be the background that the spotlight illuminated.

ntCalled a classic cat and mouse game where you play the part of the mouse, the object of Rodent’s Revenge is to use the arrow keys to move the rows of blocks and enclose the cats in a 1×1 room. The faster you trap them, the more points you score.

ntBased on the rules of Pyramid Solitaire, Tut’s Tomb is a single-player card game where the object is to remove all the cards in the pyramid by pairing cards whose ranks add up to 13.

ntAs expected, the Readme.txt file contained information on installation and use, but it also contained some humorous content as well.

By greg shultz

My first computer was a Kaypro 16 \"luggable\" running MS-DOS 2.11 which I obtained while studying computer science in 1986. After two years, I discovered that I had a knack for writing documentation and shifted my focus over to technical writing.

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